Transcription
So, anything anyone would like to ask or explore?
Q1: fear arising from emptiness insights
Yogi: Yes. I'm feeling quite a lot of fear today, and it feels like a feeling of almost terror at the pit of my stomach. And it's kind of like the things that I thought I believed in aren't really true. It's bringing this massive wave of fear, and I'm really not sure how I work with it.
Rob: Yeah. Very common, okay? Very common. Can you say what kind of things are feeling like they're not true, or ...?
Yogi: It like started off with, when I was tuning into the sensation of what I'd normally consider pain. And I tuned into it, that sensation -- what I'd normally consider pain -- but instead of, you know, calling it 'pain,' I kind of looked deeper into it. And when I looked deeper into it, it was just a sort of throbbing sensation. And then I went even deeper into it, and I actually found it a really pleasant and very pleasurable sensation, and my brain was like, "Whoa! Wait a minute!" [laughter] "What's going on here?"
Rob: Yeah. Good question! [laughter]
Yogi: And so it turned out to be completely the opposite of what I thought it was going to, what my mind had made it. So it kind of blew my mind, in a way. And then it started making me think about lots of other things in life that we make, that are man-made constructs, basically, which we based our lives on, which aren't really true on that level. And I think it's freaking me out a bit.
Rob: Wonderful, beautiful, and can be really an edge there with fear. If I just ask what may at one level sound like a silly question: why would that freak you out?
Yogi: I don't know. It's more the fact that it's this fear, I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach, and it's a feeling of terror. And I'm struggling to deal with that feeling.
Rob: Okay, yeah, so it's not really a mental thing. Yeah, okay, very good. So like I said, it's very normal. You know, emptiness, we're in the business of questioning our assumptions about reality that have remained unquestioned. And this is a process of going deeper and deeper into that. Now, we base our life on what seems so solid, seems so solidly real -- six, whatever, billion people agree on it; everyone agrees; we trade, we do business, we get in relationships, all this stuff. "All this stuff's very real, thank you." Don't question it, come to look deeply, until "Whoa!" And not quite sure: what's the ground to stand on?
So another word for 'emptiness' is 'groundlessness,' okay? Of course that can, you know -- the ground goes from underneath me, and the pit of the stomach, just as if the ground really went ... [laughter] That's what happens in the pit of the stomach. There's that fear sensation. And so it's very, very common with deep practice, and not at all a problem. Doesn't need to be a problem.
When, or at the times when the fear is very strong, then you need to kind of turn to the fear. Let go of all the impermanence business and all that stuff. Turn to the fear and meet it, meet it with kindness, soften around it, open to it, meaning this sensation in the tummy. Yeah? What's really good with fear is giving it space, okay? When there's fear, fear's a form of aversion, and when there's aversion, the mind, the consciousness contracts everything. So if I can approach this feeling in the pit of the stomach and really give it space, meaning the physical sensations that are unpleasant, really open up the space and allow them to be there. Does that make sense? So bubbling away in there, but there's a much bigger container for it. Yeah?
Yogi: Mm-hmm.
Rob: So what we usually do with fear is, part of the actual make-up of fear is this constriction around it. It's got a small space, fear can. So we're opening it up, and letting that bubble unpleasantly. So when we have fear, we usually have fear of fear. Do you see? The sensations of fear are so unpleasant that we flee them, so we're afraid of the feeling of fear. We have fear of fear. At the very least, we have aversion to the fear. And that fuels the whole process. That's this gasoline on the fire image that I was talking about. So if I make a lot of space, a lot of space for the sensations, and really allowing them, that can really kind of undermine this process of pouring gasoline on it, yeah? So that's one piece. Now, that's if it's strong. Are you okay right now?
Yogi: Yeah, it was pretty strong.
Rob: Okay.
Yogi: Feeling a little bit better.
Rob: Okay. What if you give it space right now? So open your eyes, actually, or see which is easier: eyes open or eyes closed.
Yogi: Closed.
Rob: Closed is easier? Okay, to give it -- you're letting space, you're opening up the space of consciousness, and then these unpleasant sensations in the middle of that, but you're really allowing them, allowing them to be unpleasant, because there's lots of space for them. There's a real sense of even welcoming those sensations. You know, they can be there; they're just unpleasant sensations. Lots of space. They can bubble away. You're letting them be unpleasant, and letting them bubble up, but there's a much bigger container for them, yeah? How does that feel?
Yogi: Mm, better.
Rob: Yeah? Good, okay. So when it's fairly strong, that's an option. Forget about the impermanence and all that. Work directly with the fear.
Yogi: Okay.
Rob: If it's really, really, really strong, stop practising. I mean, not permanently, just ...! [laughter] Just for then, you know? You want to have a feeling like you're in control, you're not on this manic, out of control roller coaster ride, and you don't know who the hell's in charge here. You're in control of practice. If it really feels like too much, you open your eyes, you stop, you think about shopping or taxes or some ridiculous thing, just take your mind off it, and go for a walk. You want to have the sense that you're in control. Do you understand?
Yogi: Mm. Okay. Kind of.
Rob: Well, you're in control in the sense of, if you're feeling it's difficult, you don't have to rub your nose in it. You don't even have to stay sitting. You can, like I said, open your eyes, just relax, just look around you. You can sit in the meditation room and just look around you. Stop doing the impermanence practice, stop doing that kind of intense practice and just chill out. You can always, of course, go back to the mettā practice if you want something that's more soothing. Now, if you remember, everyone -- we were saying this 50/50, if we go right back -- well, I don't know when it was. We were saying part of the functions of the samādhi and the mettā are to create a kind of cushion, so that when sometimes it feels a bit intense looking at the emptiness or the impermanence, there's actually this sense of okayness that's pervading the inner environment, and you can keep kind of stoking that, that warmth and that cushion. Yeah?
Yogi: You mean in terms of the mettā towards yourself or just generally?
Rob: Just generally mettā, yeah, whatever feels helpful. You just shift gears and go into a much softer gear where you're encouraging a sense of nurturing, comfort, ease, warmth, well-being, relaxation, calm, etc., rather than this ... Impermanence practice is kind of like a burrowing sometimes (not always; sometimes). Especially if I'm doing it directed, like at one thing, at pain, it's a kind of burrowing, and so you're just shifting it, really opening up and being easeful, yeah? But you can also, like I said, just stop, just get up, go have a cup of tea, just chill out. What's important is that you have a sense that you're in control. You can put the brakes on when you want. You can pull the handbrake on, you know. You can get out of the car and lock the keys and all of that, you understand?
Now, sometimes what happens -- so there's really, really strong fear, and you just switch gears or chill out. There's pretty strong fear, and you can work with it in that more spacious way that we just did. Then there's also -- and as time goes on, what gets more common is, the fear may get less. So there are times when there's fear around, but it's just not that strong, okay? And it's part of the mix of what's going on.
So like a lot of other things, what often happens when there's something difficult in consciousness is we get pulled into that difficulty. And when the fear isn't that strong, it might be really interesting to metaphorically sit back and have a look at what's present, the totality of what's present. You'll probably realize that there's fear, but there's also this loveliness around, that you can actually even feel somewhere in the body. So it might be the pit of the stomach feels like this, but maybe somewhere else ... After all, that came from a sense of penetrating the unpleasant, and it turned into pleasant, etc.
If I don't have much space in terms of looking at what's going on, all I notice is the fear. I get pulled into the fear, and I start pouring the gasoline on the fire, getting entangled there, and it gets bigger, and it starts taking up everything. But very often in practice, fear is just one element of a bigger maṇḍala of what's there. And I see: "Ah, fear's a part of what's going on, but I have some space around it." And I'm not trying to get rid of it; I'm absolutely not trying to get rid of it. I'm not trying to ignore it. But I can decide in that moment, "Oh, okay, I could go into the fear -- that's always an option -- and work with it skilfully." Or I could just kind of let it be there, let it be part of the space, but just lean over more, a little bit, into the loveliness of what else is going on, if the fear is not that strong. In other words, there's usually a mix around. Is this making sense? Yeah? There's usually a mix going round, and I don't have to get automatically pulled into what's difficult.
Sometimes to go to what's difficult is extremely skilful and helpful, and sometimes I'm just knotting myself. Better -- I see I've got these things, two things going on, and so I lean over into the lovely part of the mix. And especially physically -- feel that physical loveliness. And it's almost like something is being communicated to the cells, to the cellular intelligence, that's reassuring you that we're on the right track here, "It's okay." And the loveliness itself starts to calm the body down. Even if that loveliness is not very remarkable, it starts to calm everything down.
And eventually one can let go into that groundlessness, into that spaciousness, into that emptiness, more and more. Slowly, slowly, generally speaking, one realizes it's not a problem. So sometimes I make the analogy with people, it's like running a really hot bath. You run this bath, and then you're not sure, it is too hot now? So you stick your toe in: "Well, that's okay." So you stick your foot in: "That's okay too." And then maybe your calf -- slowly, so you realize it's okay. And then maybe, eventually, you can just completely abandon yourself in this emptiness with total surrender. And you know that's completely trustworthy. There's no danger there. There's only beauty and healing and peace and freedom, etc.
For almost everyone, that's a journey. Almost everyone. So what happens in the context of deep practice is, fear comes up at times. Sometimes it's strong. Sometimes it's just a little bit. Sometimes it's not there at all. And one works with it. Some very, very small percentage of people have no fear whatsoever and just, "Yippee!" [laughter] And they dive in at the deep end. But my experience is that's a very small percentage of people, and for most other people fear will come up because we're challenging our assumptions of reality. This is the edifice, this is the construct that we've created, and this is what we're used to. This delineates our area of familiarity, our sense of security, all of that. And it's a bit like, you know, sometimes people have been in prison for a really long time, and the time comes for their release and they start, "Whoa!", you know?
Yogi: I was thinking about that as well, with the film Shawshank Redemption. [laughs]
Rob: Right, yes, yes. So you know, what you're describing, I mean, I'm going into it at length because it's so common and it's important. But there will be this range of the experience of fear, and you kind of choose an appropriate response dependent. And always remember the function of the mettā and the samādhi as cushions, yeah? Does there feel more from that, or is that okay for now?
Yogi: Thanks, that's great.
Rob: Yeah? Okay. Good.
Q2: the meaning and emptiness of love
Yogi: What's love? What's love beyond relative kindness and well-wishing?
Rob: Do you want to say more? I'll repeat it. Don't worry, yeah.
Yogi: You said love is everything. My question was coming from around whether I am love. And if I am empty, then love appears to be a movement. [long pause, Rob and yogi laugh]
Rob: Okay.
Yogi: Yeah, I'm not sure I can find the words. There's something ... I mean, I'm understanding that it's not a mind state.
Rob: Love is not a mind state? Yeah.
Yogi: And something around -- I've got some lack of clarity around love and life and death. In a relative sense, there's a boundary between life and death -- like, you know, you can look at a person, and they're alive, and one that's dead. Don't think I can be very clear. But if we're empty, then emptiness seems to be that movement. So what's the boundary between life and death? I'm not being very clear.
Rob: I'm not quite sure what you're asking there.
Yogi: What love is. And is it life itself? Is it a movement?
Rob: Could it be all those things?
Yogi: Is it separate to consciousness?
Rob: Can you hear at the back?
Yogi 2: No, you said you were going to repeat the question.
Rob: Yeah, okay, um ... [laughter] We feel not quite sure what the question is yet! [laughter] "What love is. And is love separate from consciousness?" Okay, and is there something about love being empty, or ...? Is that in there as well?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: Yeah, okay. I don't know that ultimately, you know, "what love is" has an answer, even. It's a word, and words kind of -- we decide what words mean and what they denote, you know? So there's a way that if you really go deeply into any concept it begins to kind of lose its edges and lose its definitions. And love is certainly one of those. So I'm not sure that there could be an answer of what love is, or maybe there are just infinite answers of what love is, and that's a better way of putting it -- that you can't really limit the definition of what love is.
Sometimes the mind wants to put something in a box. And sometimes it's helpful to put something in a box, because it gives us a sense of direction and a sense of what it's helpful to follow. Experientially, I want to have a sense of which is the way of love and which is not the way of love. But already on the retreat, you know, we'll be having different experiences of love. Even in one day, the experience of that is very [different]. This has come up, you know. Sometimes it feels very human: "I wish you well." Sometimes there's this kind of pervasive mystical sense of love, that just, we're all sitting in love. Sometimes the sense is we are love, I am love, you are love. Sometimes the sense is of love as something flowing; sometimes of something static that's holding. It's all of that. So there's a way that one feels experientially whether something is following a thread of a sense of what love is, an experience of what love is, in a way that's opening the being out, that's helpful in a way, and you can feel that. And if that involves defining love provisionally, as part of that, then that's great. But there will always come a point where the definition crumbles, or it goes beyond that. Does that make sense?
Yogi 3: Is love empty?
Rob: Yes. Okay. So there's another question that Selma asked as well, "Is love the same as consciousness?"
Which order shall we say? Let's take this one first, "Is love the same as consciousness?" So if I'm just talking about the experience of love, which is much more important than, if you like, the definition of it, really, ultimately, although definitions can be really helpful, like I said, and kind of pointing us in the right direction, or directions that are fruitful, we should say. One of the experiences of love can be that it actually gets much more subtle. Obviously one experience of love is passionate burning, you know, lots of fiery feelings, etc. And that's obviously lovely, and beautiful part of being a human being.
Another experience of love can be that it's much more vast and kind of calm and spacious, and it just kind of is, in the same way space is. And there's a sense of, sometimes, like I said, the love opens out and it feels like it embraces and it includes everything. It's almost like everything is in love. Yeah? A similar thing can happen with the sense of consciousness, especially as we let go more, as we go deeper into the practice, and with these ways of letting go: the sense of consciousness somehow being in here [the head], looking at something there, we start to see, well, that's one way of feeling what consciousness is, and there are lots of other ways. Another way of feeling what consciousness is is very similar: that actually it's infinite and everything is in consciousness.
So that sense of consciousness which can open out as we let go more and more -- in a way, this construction that we're doing when we don't let go, when we cling, we're defining the self, binding the self; we also end up binding and defining consciousness and everything else, so everything gets quite small and compartmentalized. As we let go more and more, things open out. One of the things that opens out is the sense of consciousness -- or can at times open out.
So that sense of opened out consciousness, it's almost like consciousness is vast, that contains everything -- that's very similar to that sense of "love is vast and contains all things." Sometimes people just get a sense of space opening out, and it's like space containing all things, or consciousness containing all things, or love containing all things. And you start to see, it's almost like you can see it different ways. You almost colour that experience in different ways at different times. So sometimes I can see that it's love holding. It's almost like that's what my perception filters out, sees the space as. Sometimes it's awareness or consciousness. Sometimes it's just space. Sometimes it's silence. It's just, the universe is pervaded by silence, and everything is resting in this great and unfathomable silence. And they're all kind of slightly different slants on the same opening out of perception, what the Buddha might call 'perception attainment.'
To feel that can be really, really beautiful and transforming -- to hang out in that; not just a one-off experience, but to hang out in that and find one's way back there repeatedly. Immensely transforming, and one might feel very much like one has stumbled on or revealed a really deep truth of existence, that love is consciousness, or consciousness is infinite, or love is infinite and all that. And there is a real mystical level of reality where that is really true. And there may come a time where eventually one goes beyond even that, and sees that that, too, was a kind of more subtly and delicately constructed perception. And one goes beyond that, and there are different things that can open up, but eventually even the concepts of love, or the concept of consciousness, even, begins to crumble. It cannot sustain itself as a kind of -- when we say, when we have a word, 'love,' or a word, 'consciousness,' the intuitive sense with a word of anything is that "this refers to something real and independent." And if you go deeper and deeper into the practice, there's a sense of that crumbling of concepts, 'love' or 'consciousness,' etc. You could say they melt into each other. You could say they go beyond anything that the conceptual mind can try and get its head around, so to speak.
So for me, there's a journey with all of this. If I go too early and just say, if I just say, "Love's empty. A big consciousness, that's a waste of time. That's just some mystical rubbish, you know, that you, whatever," I will miss all the beauty of that and all the transformation and all the way that works on the heart in such a deep way to open things and transform one's sense of existence and life. So to throw that out too early and just dismiss it as "just a meditation experience," "it's just some mystical nonsense," that would really be a mistake. To stop there, as well, that would really be a mistake: "This is it. Hang up my boots. That's the final reality. I've arrived at that. That's it. I've figured it all out then. It's this." That would also be a mistake. So for me, there's a kind of journey there, and some sense of keeping the questioning alive, but letting things do their work on the heart. And I've no idea if I've answered your question or not. [laughs]
Yogi 3: I think it's been answered.
Rob: Okay. So, you know, one of the skills of the Buddha is he has this analogy -- it's quite famous -- of the raft. These concepts, 'love,' 'consciousness,' even 'impermanence' -- impermanence isn't ultimately true. That's not the truth of things. It's not true that things are impermanent. It's obviously not true that things are permanent. [laughter] Things are neither permanent nor impermanent, and the mind goes, "Huh?" Because things are empty. But we use those concepts, as I said, when I said yesterday, there are ways of looking, and I pick up that concept of impermanence, and I pick up the concept of love and mettā, and I follow it in practice. And it does something to my heart, and it does something in the understanding. It unfolds something. It unbinds something, gradually, gradually. I'm using these concepts, and eventually the concepts themselves dissolve. But I have to use the concepts, because those are the concepts that lead in the direction of the dissolving of concepts.
Yogi: What can be beyond, if consciousness is infinite?
Rob: What can be beyond infinite? What can be beyond infinite consciousness? Experientially, there are a number of experiences that can be beyond infinite consciousness. I mean, I don't know if I want to go into it now. I'm not sure if it's worthwhile to say, you know? Just that there is something ... I think the important sense, the important thing for me is a sense of feeling one's movement without trying to define exactly where we're going. It's feeling, "Where am I now?" And if that's the sense that's opening for me in my heart, and that's what's exciting me, and that's what's kind of "Wow!", this sense of consciousness being something infinite, or love being something infinite, I don't want to hurry through that and say, "Oh, I've heard there's something beyond that, so I'll just, you know, kind of ..." I need to linger there, linger there, and like I said, let it do its work on the being, very deep. And some people linger there for years, in fact. Some people, not so long or whatever. Unfortunately, some people stay there. They just pitch a house there [claps hands], and that's it, "Done. Nothing more to question." For me, that's a sad mistake. But there's this sense of being excited by what you're excited by, and letting that do its work, and not leaping too far ahead of where ... But yeah. So Kate, I'm not sure if I answered that about "Is love empty?"
Yogi 3: Yeah, pretty much! [laughter]
Rob: You know, if we talk about this construction business -- this is in the realm of what I didn't want to get so much into on this retreat, or I wasn't planning to get so much into on this retreat. What's the opposite of love? Hate or anger. You might say aversion. Sometimes when you're in the throes of aversion or something, and you're really "Arghargharghh," really angry at something, there's a sense that that's just the reality of what's happening; it's really real. And again, if we have this business of moving the range of the mind state into and out of states of love and mettā, whatever, and on that spectrum of course, anger or being really upset about something is one end, and this very effortless love is at another end.
At first, when we do the mettā -- I can't remember if I've said this in here, or just in interviews -- it seems like we're really huffing and puffing and constructing something. We talked about this, right? When I construct less self, I see also that it takes more effort and more energy and more construction to be angry than to be in love. So we could say that, going back to Nina's thing, if we're in the business of deconstructing, letting go of constructing, actually although love is empty, it's less constructed than something like anger, which might feel more real when we're in the middle of it. And at first with mettā -- we said this, I think it was yesterday or some point -- first people hear about mettā and they think, "Well, that's just ridiculous. That's just a construction. The real thing is what you're feeling in the moment. That's what's really real." And maybe there's just that there's a habitual lot of construction going on with that. I'm used to constructing a lot of problem, etc. But I haven't seen. And because I'm used to it, I assume that I'm not constructing it, but I'm just used to that kind of construction. Yeah? Does more come out of that for you?
Yogi 3: No.
Rob: How does it ...? If we say ...
Yogi 3: I wasn't really going in that direction.
Rob: Ah, okay.
Yogi 3: You know, I don't know what direction I was going in, but it wasn't ... Yeah, but it's fine.
Rob: Okay. What felt behind the question of whether love was empty?
Yogi 3: I don't know, it just popped up.
Rob: Okay, yeah, good. It's a really important, beautiful question, yeah. If we say love is empty, is that disappointing, or ...?
[inaudible responses]
Yogi 4: If everything is empty, then love must be empty.
Rob: Okay, too many answers. Someone's disappointed; someone's not. What did Hannah say?
Yogi 5: It's like it's disappointing to the personal ego.
Rob: Okay.
Yogi 5: More terrifying ...
Rob: More terrifying?
Yogi 6: Also maybe it's the fear that the beautiful experiences you've had of love are not real, if it's empty.
Rob: Okay. Yep. Is Catherine going to talk about this more tonight?
Catherine: She might!
Rob: She might! [laughter] We can keep returning to this question. I threw out one thing in one of the beginning talks: that to see the emptiness of things is not a disappointment. It's not a disappointment. And sometimes when we say it, it feels like, "Oh, but that means it's not real," or "That means ... it's like it's taking the juicy bits out of life and kind of flattening it all and just saying 'it's all empty.'" It's not that. [laughs] But shall we revisit it? Is that okay?
Q3: effort levels
Yogi: Can I ask about effort?
Rob: Effort, yeah.
Yogi: I mean, I have a tendency to over-effort. And it just seems an impossible -- I don't think I'll get around it. I try too hard. And then I get all tense and tight, and I don't know. This is a long habit of over-efforting, and I think it is something to do with, I feel that if I'm not actually doing then nothing's happening. Do you know what I mean?
Rob: Is that a thought, or ...?
Yogi: It's a thought.
Rob: Okay, yeah.
Yogi: It's a habitual thought, that if I don't, if it's not me doing it, then it's not going to happen. Therefore, if I want anything -- I'm tying myself in knots here. If I don't put loads of effort and energy into it, nothing's going to happen -- either in experiences or letting go, or all that. Whereas, I know from experience again, deep down, that one has to open and relax and let go. You don't get it through effort. But I still have this [?] which goes in my head. But I don't know how to get around it.
Rob: I think Catherine is definitely going to talk about this tonight, right? [laughter] Yeah, but I'll say something now. The question of effort, as a meditator, you cannot get away from it. It's going to be there. It's there every sitting, every walking. Rather than wishing it would go away or ignoring it, we have to include the question of effort. Every sitting and every walking, it's an alive question. It's an alive dimension or aspect of the practice. And sometimes we just wish that it wasn't. We wish that we didn't have to deal with that. We wish that we could just set the dial on '5,' which sounds like a nice, balanced number, and go into cruise control. [laughter] And that would be what we would wish. You know, why can't it be like that?
Yogi 2: Have you not got a cruise control to liberation? [laughter]
Rob: Unfortunately, because we're human beings and things change and things are dependent on other things, it's not like that. I think it's really important to -- it's like, acknowledge that one needs to be sensitive to the effort dimension kind of in an ongoing way. And that means, as much as possible, throwing out preconceptions. And you hear a lot of preconceptions in these kind of environments, like, "You've really got to sweat, or nothing will happen," versus "You can't do anything, and don't do. Non-doing is the way to go." To me, they're both just extreme views, conceptions, that are hardened into ...
Actually, what happens is, in any moment, can I be sensitive to what's helpful here? Not in my ideas, but actually feeling into it. So one gets a felt sense, in the practice, sitting, walking, standing, whatever it is, a felt sense of the kind of effort level, and whether that's helpful or not helpful. Now, that gets more and more subtle as we go more subtly into practice. But oftentimes, people get something here, and it's like, "Oh, I wish that wasn't there," but actually it can be a really helpful indicator of when we're just too much, too much effort. And it's just telling you, "Back off just a little bit." It doesn't mean go and have a cup of tea. It means just back off a little bit, just back off.
What is it to stay focused on whatever you're doing, impermanence or whatever, but just take your foot off the accelerator pedal a little bit, okay? And conversely, if one is nodding, etc., well, it's gone too much, you know? So there's this sense of sensitivity. Too much effort will be manifested -- one of the ways it will reveal itself is some kind of contraction coming into the sense of the body. It could be in the head, it could be elsewhere. But it's like sensitivity to the body -- I keep going on about this -- it tells us so much. And when that gets tight, it's sometimes because the effort is just [too much]. And then what is it to just back off a little bit?
I think to be open to really experimenting with that in a very tangible way, rather than have a view of this, or a view of that, like that. Expect it to be there. The question of balanced effort, like I said, it's not you put the dial on '5.' It's not static. It's always shifting. What was Right Effort this morning may well not be Right Effort this afternoon. Or even at the beginning of the sitting compared to the end of the sitting, or five minutes later. Sometimes I say practice is like surfing. It's another thing I know nothing about, but. [laughter] You stand on a surfboard, and ...
Yogi 3: Fall off! [laughter]
Rob: Well, how am I going to fall off? I'm going to fall off if I don't respond, right? Here I am, the waves, and I'm trying to -- if I just stand there, I'm just going to basically fall off. How to keep one's balance is one responds, one responds. One's constantly in this. So our practice is like that. It also is part of what makes it fun. I mean, just standing there on a surfboard is not much fun. Part of the fun is the responsiveness. So it's quite subtle. And play with it. Actually, Catherine's going to talk much more about that tonight.
Catherine: Surfing!
Rob: Surfing, yeah.
Yogi: Yeah, because a number of times -- I don't know if this has got anything to do with it, but a number of times I've been a bit too far away from base, and looked at my watch, and "God, I'm going to be late, you know, I'll never get back in time."
Rob: For a sitting or ...?
Yogi: Yeah. So I'll hurry, and I'll start -- and of course get really worn out, and my foot hurts, and I have to keep stopping, and the clock's ticking by. And then I kind of go, "I have to do something different," and so I started to think, well make the going pleasurable -- you know, the actual moving.
Rob: The walking back pleasurable?
Yogi: Yeah, make it pleasurable. And forget about trying to get back on time. And because I used to do a lot of mountaineering, it's like you can walk in a way which is -- the body feels really lovely, you know, the movement.
Rob: Yes, exactly.
Yogi: It's just that relaxing that "having to get back" and having the actual process be pleasurable itself, I actually went much faster, and I didn't get tired.
Rob: Right. Beautifully put. And you can transfer all of that to a sitting practice or a walking meditation, and it's the same deal. And partly it's like getting a sense of enjoying the practice. When I let go, it's enjoyable, generally speaking. I mean, Nina brought up fear, etc.; sometimes it's not. But generally speaking, letting go is enjoyable. So I just follow that, you know? I just follow that. If I'm thinking about "over there where I need to be, where I'm not yet," very easily the inner critic comes in, the self-construction in relation to this goal, and it's lost the immediacy and the joy of actually what it feels like to let go. And practice is basically different ways of letting go. And that feels good, or it can feel good a lot of the time. So you can find real ways to transfer that into the moment, in practice, yeah.
Juliet, yeah.
Q4: basking in love vs 'working' on seeing impermanence
Yogi: As you know, it's like I'm having more of this experience of kind of basking in love, and then when I'm doing the contact -- when you introduced the bare contact -- just felt like kind of going into a cool pool. And then, now we've introduced the impermanence practice, it feels more like I'm having to do something, and I'm really resisting it, because I was enjoying the basking in love. And so I don't really know what to do, because I think there is a way that I do, that gets kind of like real ... like I was describing [?], and I'm thinking, should I just kind of carry on basking, because that's new and pretty nice?
Rob: Yeah, yeah. Can you hear over there?
Yogi: I could get too ... Looking for the impermanence, you know, it gets too ... I don't know.
Rob: Do you see the impermanence when you look for it?
Yogi: In a very obvious way. I don't feel like I'm seeing anything subtle. You know, I'm seeing birdsong stops, foot moves, lands.
Rob: How does it feel to see the impermanence? In other words, when you're staying at contact, part of the reason staying at contact feels nice, as we said, is because we're not constructing so much. And that's part of the reason why it just feels good, because mostly what I construct then feels heavy; I feel imprisoned by that. So in a way, you want to begin getting the same sense that seeing impermanence unlocks something, it unlocks something. If if I've got a self-construct of "I need to be seeing it more subtle," then that's actually, I'm constructing something that's already making the practice, making the doing quite heavy. So it might be similar to what Rose said: it might be finding a way where, being in contact with impermanence, you feel a sense of freedom with it, a sense of space come in. And tapping into that is helpful.
We touched on, I think it was Julia asked a question once about doing and non-doing, and there's this way that doing in practice can get demonized and completely shunted out, and then it fits what we might hear, "Oh, yeah, non-doing," and it sounds, you know ... But sometimes it's just that the self has crept in, in a way that it doesn't have to, and it's causing pain there.
If you're enjoying the basking, and the staying at contact, I would definitely do more of that, and from that place of ease, you know, gently introduce the impermanence. In other words, really take advantage of what feels good. Really linger there, because it's doing a lot of work. And then gently, at times, introduce the impermanence thing, and just watch out for the self, if the self is coming in, in a way. Or just, if we go back to what Rose was saying, it's just the felt sense of things getting too tight in the doing. And if it is, it's like you just relax it, just take the foot off the pedal a little bit, but you can stay at impermanence. And there's a way you just begin to feel, you can sense the freedom coming out of it, a little bit.
Yogi: Okay, so you know you're on track?
Rob: Yeah. What tells us we're on track, generally speaking, is a sense of relief, release, freedom, spaciousness, etc.
Yogi: Okay. Yeah.
Q5: little to no sense of freedom coming from impermanence practice
Rob: Is the impermanence practice, does it feel like it's useful, working, interesting, helpful? [laughter] This half of the room ... [laughter]
Yogi: It'll pass anyway. [laughter]
Yogi 2: I'd say a bit like Juliet, but not so uncomfortable. It's like, "Oh, I'm watching things." Well, actually, I think -- I'm not sure if this is relevant -- I think I'm watching things change, and when I really look closely it's not that they're changing; I'm seeing lots of moments that are different from each other.
Rob: Yeah, yeah.
Yogi 2: And I think, '"Oh, that's interesting." But I don't have any kind of feeling of freedom or expansion -- just a thought, "Oh, okay, there we go."
Rob: Okay, so like I said, with these three characteristics, you know, different ones are going to unlock for different people. If all there was were moments, separate moments, that's all there is, what would that mean?
Yogi 3: It's a bit conceptual, isn't it? If the mind starts going, "Well, what does that mean?"
Rob: But what's wrong with conceptual?
Yogi 3: I don't know, it just feels like it's not an experience. Because I can relate to what she's saying. It's not an experience of that liberating understanding or insight; it's kind of more of a, "Oh, look, it's just a lot of moments. What does that mean?"
Rob: Okay. Well, there are two things: one is a way of picking up that question in a way that it starts actually having some power to it, rather than just being a conceptual question. But another might be, again, it's like, with these practices -- I shine the light here, and I look at impermanence, I shine the light there and I look with impermanence, and sometimes the self can be hiding in the doing of the practice, or as Jane said the other day, the 'one who sees,' the 'one who's looking.' And would it be possible to shine the light on that? Do you understand? It's like, the self can be a little bit untouched by just seeing all this stuff that has nothing to do with itself, so I just sit here and I'm not challenged at all. What would it be to start turning the light of the impermanence on the sense of self, on the sense of that looking, even?
Yogi 3: How would I do that? Would it be like, "Who is looking?", that kind of question?
Rob: Well, put it this way: when you're sitting there and you're looking at moments, what is the sense of self at that point? Where is the self-sense?
Yogi 3: Okay, I see.
Rob: You know? Do you see what I mean? You can look at body dissolving, or whatever, or something happening, but there's a sense of self somewhere. This goes back to that concept, introduced quite early -- it's like, paying attention to the self-sense. It might have gone quite subtle, but it's happily there, undisturbed, doing the practice and watching all this.
Yogi 3: And it's a very, it's interesting you say that, because now I realize, when I'm watching the clouds or taste, there's a very strong sense of observer. I'm like a scientist. [laughs]
Rob: Yeah, yeah, good.
Yogi 3: Much stronger than normal, in fact, because I'm really looking. So that could be why it feels so neutral.
Rob: So, to me ... [sighs] I'm not sure if I should say this, but I don't feel the impermanence one of the three is as powerful as the other two for uprooting that 'self as observer' identity. But have a go with it. It's like, what gives you the feeling of an observer? So in a way, there are some sensations one has of 'being an observer,' and it's like, what if I saw the impermanence of those? So it's like, everything gets ...
Yogi 4: [?] being the observer, because I'm having the same problem, you know. I'm saying, "Okay, fine, so I've got, you know, one hour closer to my death," etc., but I'm not feeling any liberation or freedom. And I'm noticing I just have that [?] is never going to happen again, da-da-da-da-da, but there's no ...
Yogi 5: I want to make an observation.. When I started this practice, which was over, I don't know, two weeks ago or something, I thought that freedom would be like great wodges of freedom, and actually it varies quite a lot. So freedom can look very, you know, look very, very subtle. So there may be freedom there, but you may not be seeing it.
Rob: Yeah, thank you, very good, yeah.
Yogi 4: Also, I was having a very shitty day today as well.
Rob: Yeah, okay. So right there, Ruth, it's like having a shitty day, okay. I think one of the things I threw out right at the end yesterday was, okay, so we have a sense of a shitty day, a sense of whatever it is. And one of the things with the impermanence is like, looking at that really closely, and seeing I can't find this shitty day. It seems obvious I'm having a shitty day, but when I look at it really closely, what I see are moments, and some of them will feel shitty, maybe, and some of them won't feel -- they'll feel quite neutral, or whatever. And then this heavy, solid concept, felt concept, of a shitty day that I'm having, it begins to be punctured, and begins to come much more spacious, much more light. And in that will be a relative sense of freedom.
It's like, when I feel "I'm having a shitty day," there's quite a sense of constriction, etc., around that. When I see that actually it's not really that, it's just moment, moment, moment, moment, moment -- very different. That's a very different -- well, it's still impermanence, but to reflect "I'm having a shitty day, but tomorrow will probably be better," that's still helpful, but in a way, I still believe that today's shitty. Versus looking really closely at today, like under a microscope, and I realize, "It's not really a shitty day. I'm having lots of moments of very differing kinds, and I'm drawing the dots between selected moments to create the felt sense and perception of a shitty day." And that's what I mean about using the impermanence practice to really -- you can angle it in all different ways, but you can look in ways that start exposing the non-solidity of things. Yeah?
I'm a little bit aware of time, because I don't want to talk too long, and then you guys have too much words today, because Catherine's talking later. Jacqui, do you ...?
Q6: impermanence practice harder to sustain than mettā
Yogi: It was just a tiny comment -- that I think what I'm finding it more difficult to do is sustaining the impermanence practice compared with the mettā -- which, you know, is occupying in every sense, isn't it? The emotions and the mind is occupied. And I think because I'm finding the impermanence harder to sustain, there's more space for self to be constructed, and kicking in a bit. That's how it feels to me.
Rob: Yeah, okay. What feels hard to sustain with it? That it's ...?
Yogi: It's, again, it's something about the effort -- that you can be in a situation, and it's like, "Oh, well, I've done that bit now," you know. "I saw the flowers move." It's okay if I'm walking -- you know, there's movement there, there's something in there. It just feels as though it's some little pieces that get completed.
Rob: Completed ...? Yeah, yeah. What if one were to just, for example, choose a sense door and just stay continuously with the change in that sense door? So not 'this object,' and that changes, and then 'that object,' and that changes. It's just the fact that there's nothing but change in this sense door. Or with the totality of one's experience. So just sitting right now, and it's like, there's just change. Everything's changing. And just staying with that sense of change, rather than 'this' and then 'that' and then ...
Yogi 2: What if everything is changing except for a painful sensation in the back? [laughter]
Rob: Okay, so, if it's too painful, move. We still want kindness here. So everything, all this is happening in a climate of kindness, okay? But again, anything that I pay attention to really closely -- we'll talk about working with pain -- but anything I pay attention to really closely, if I put it under a microscope, it will change. It will be changing. So I can say, "Oh, this is not changing. It was here ten minutes ago. It's still here," etc. But if I really penetrate it and look for the change there, I will see that it's changing.
Yogi 2: Well, that worked for me last night, because I was working with one leg, and every time I went back, because I went to each toe, then I went very slowly up the leg, and each time I went back, it changed. Every single time. I did this about five or six times, and I thought, "No, it's never going to change." [laughter] And I went back and it changed again! It's quite extraordinary.
Rob: Yeah, yeah, very good. Or one can just really stay there and watch it dancing, watch it appearing, flickering, etc. So in a way, it's almost like, if I sustain the attention and probe it, it will reveal the change. The other thing, Jacqui, that's possible is, one could actually go hunting for this 'lasting self' through the impermanence practice. Instead of clouds changing, it's like -- the fact that clouds change doesn't really both me. Clouds can change and I'll stay myself, you know? [laughs] It's like, big deal. But what if I look inside, so to speak, and I can't find anything that doesn't change? Then it starts to kind of mean more, in that sense. So that's a possibility too. It's like, hunt this self down. We have this sense of self -- okay, find it. Find it and see if it's something that feels permanent in the way that we intuitively feel it to be. That's a way that can make it kind of more perhaps compelling or sustainable, yeah?
Yogi 3: And then that has an effect on the other stuff. [?] That's my experience.
Rob: Which other stuff?
Yogi 3: When you're looking at impermanence in the world around you, outside of the body, then the other stuff becomes suddenly more interesting. It has more of an effect.
Rob: When you first look for the self, and then you look outwards, then there's more of a sense of the ...
Yogi 3: That's my experience.
Rob: Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, there will be, because something's opening up there.
Yogi 3: My experience is that it's quite profound, really. I feel it because I'm feeling it in my cells. So that feels ...
Rob: Yeah, very good. And in a way, this impermanence here and that impermanence out there begins to be just one big dance of impermanence, not really separate. Yeah, wonderful.
Q7: making self-definitions more conscious
Rob: I wanted to throw a couple of things out. It really came out of a couple interviews, and I just thought they'd be useful for everyone. Going back to the beginning, and mentioned this sense of self-definitions. Sometimes one discovers a particular definition of oneself, or a way that one's been defining oneself: "I'm a failure. I am this or I am that." Someone was saying, "I am this contraction in the body. I am (whatever it is)." And there's a way that sometimes those definitions are operating and they're not fully conscious. We're not fully conscious of them. And sometimes they just get revealed to us gradually, what they are. Sometimes through asking the question, how I'm defining myself, they get revealed.
But if that's happening, or one is emerging or something like that, it can be really interesting and really helpful to kind of write it down, or speak it out loud, or say it in the mind very clearly: "I am a failure. I am a failure. I am this contraction in the body. I am an angry person. Whatever it is -- I am useless. I am hopeless." And actually say that really, really clearly. Maybe even say it really clearly many, many times, and write it. You can even do like -- did you get that punishment at school where you write lines? [laughter] Yeah? "I am ..." whatever.
Sometimes in an interview, a person says it, and it's kind of like, say it, and put the words out, and then they're hanging there in the air. When they're inside and not so conscious, it's like that very semi-consciousness of them, they can kind of snake through the circuits and have their power and do their work. When they become more conscious, it's like they're hanging there, and then it's like some other part of the being looks at them and says, "Well, what do I think about that? Is there another response to that self-definition?" It has more space around it. It's viewed more objectively. Does that make sense as an exercise? You may want to play with that. But don't push it if nothing's presenting itself.
Yogi: And if it goes a bit pear-shaped and you start believing it more ... what do you do then? [laughter]
Rob: Come and talk to us. Yeah. There's something about saying it, or writing it and looking at it. It creates a kind of distance to it, a space. But certainly if it doesn't work that way, yeah, obviously come and talk.
Now, someone reported in an interview something quite interesting too: there is quite a lot of heaviness. I can't remember the word they used for it. It wasn't heaviness; it was something else. Quite a lot of heaviness. It's common for this sense of heaviness to be there inside. And around that then gets this self-sense and self-definition, that that's kind of "who I am." And so used to that, and so oppressed by that, and so defined by that.
And then, experimenting with awareness being more spacious, opening out to listening, etc., and noticing -- and I asked, you know, "What's the sense of that heaviness when the consciousness is more spacious, when you go into listening?" And the sense is, well, it's not there. The heaviness goes, or it's much lighter. Now, to me, that's absolutely fascinating and really important. Because the habitual assumption -- understandable, but that comes out of delusion -- "No, that's really who I am. And that heaviness, I might not be in contact with it at some times, but either that's because I'm in denial or, you know, it's there waiting to present itself."
And again, this sometimes is not fully articulated with clarity that that's what we're believing about what's going on. And that's one way of looking. But a scientist would shake their head at that, as a kind of -- that doesn't hold water. You see: this experience of heaviness appears when there are these conditions. And when I take, for instance, contracted mind, when I take those conditions away, there is no heaviness. Is that a matter of denial? Is that a matter of pretending something doesn't exist? Is that a matter of something going into hiding? Or is it just that that thing itself is dependent on conditions in the present moment? Do you understand?
This is actually -- I could give a whole talk on this. We have to be a little careful here, because obviously we do carry things from the past at times. But maybe, and another way of talking about the emptiness of phenomena, a thing cannot exist without being supported in the present by certain conditions. And without those supports in the present, it does not exist as something, some monster inside me waiting to come up and bite, or something that needs to come up and whatever. And it can, one can be so used to assuming a certain independent, inherent reality to what's inside having some kind of independent existence.
Yogi 2: Are you saying our beliefs about ourselves are like a constant condition? That we ...
Rob: That's one of the conditions. In this particular instance, the condition was contraction of mind versus spaciousness of mind. When there's contraction, that's a condition that feeds something. But very good, Jacqui, because a belief in ourself is also another condition. Now, throw in that, and that's a powerful -- like I said for something else, it's like throwing a grenade in there. It's not a neutral thing to have a certain belief about myself. It's not, "I just happen to have a belief that I'm a complete evil monster, but that doesn't make any difference to ..." [laughs] Of course it's going to make a difference! Or that I'm a failure, or that this thing will always be around or whatever. So the beliefs are very potent conditions in the present that determine what arises, as is the openness or closedness of the mind, etc. So this is quite a different way of looking than most people might be accustomed to. It's like, just watching this over and over and over, what's the reality here? And one can assume, and with that assumption, it has a lot of weight. Does this make sense? I'm saying it very briefly, but I should really, it should be a whole talk because it's quite complicated and I don't want to ...
Yogi 3: If you're feeling something quite strongly like that, is going to a spacious state quite a useful experiment?
Rob: Yes.
Yogi 3: Because is there likely to be some contraction around that you're not aware of?
Rob: Yeah. When there's something difficult there's extremely likely to be a contraction. And that contraction is not (we'll talk -- well, we may or may not talk), that contraction is not a neutral element in the mix of experience. It's a conditioning factor that's creating in the moment, and shaping in the moment, what's occurring. Like I said, it's not just, "It just happens to be that I'm contracted around this thing." No, the contraction is part of what's going on. The gasoline and the fire are one.
Yogi 4: Can I quickly share something?
Rob: Please, Jan, yeah.
Yogi 4: If it's helpful ... I had an interview with Rob, and it was about that really stark sense of self. Talking to Rob, I really got how deeply I was holding the belief. And I came away from the interview, and I did a process with myself, and it's like, "Is it true?" And I sat, and I really -- it just, the whole thing just dropped away, and I just, I saw myself as a small child, when I didn't have that thing. When that happened, there was like a whole new set of experiences that came into my being. It was really amazing to see that kind of -- it was just, it was like you said, it was like Rob said: somebody comes into a room, and they say, you know, "I'm a turtle," and you can see that they're not a turtle! [laughter] You know, and you say to them, "I really hope that you get to see one day that you're not a turtle." [laughter] And it was like, it was really helpful. It was just so helpful. And it was that thing, it was like naming it, you know, naming it: "I believe this." And then coming away, and doing this process, and I did the "I believe" thing, but I also did, you know, "Is it true?" And then getting experiences, memories, whatever it is, where it's not true.
Rob: Yeah, beautiful. Good.
Yogi 4: And just really seeing that it's not true. And then it was just amazing. I thought it was like being told that Johnny Depp was 5'2", and then meeting him, and then actually he's 6 foot! [laughter] I'm never, ever going to believe again that he's 5'2", because I've seen. [laughter] I've seen that he's 6 foot. So you're not going to convince me that he's 5'2" any more.
Rob: Yeah, very good.
Yogi 4: That sort of, like you said, the ridiculousness of this person who thinks they're a turtle. So I wanted to share that, because I thought it may be helpful.
Rob: Thank you, yes. Thank you very much. Yeah, that's wonderful, yeah. So I was wondering, because I got a note earlier from Jane, and it just said "I'm not a turtle." [laughter] "Ze patients are doing very well!" But I thought that's what it might mean, so thank you. That's great. That's really wonderful. Yeah, beautiful.
We need to end. But just to add to that, you know, the process of how we get liberated, it's interesting. Sometimes things just break, and that's it. And sometimes we get a glimpse of something, and it goes back and forth into kind of more contracted, more open, and it's more gradual like that, and more back and forth. And sometimes it's like, just a piece crumbles, and it doesn't come back, you know?
Yogi 4: We'll see.
Rob: We'll see, exactly. But you've glimpsed something, and that's the important thing, and that builds the confidence. You've found a way of working, as well, so that's absolutely wonderful. Yeah. Thank you.
Okay, so let's have a quiet moment together.
